Chapter 23 #3
He tried to force a little optimism in when they entered the armory room, for everything inside the cold brick was packed and cluttered to hell.
He’d have crumpled like the set of cheap armor in the back corner if he didn’t, because the magnitude and mess brought him back to the busy work of his student days.
He’d near gone blind from how many days he spent cooped up making and organizing remedies or translating page after page in al-Anezi’s manuscripts.
He’d started to believe that men who finished their degrees and became physicians were simply those who had proved they could survive constant, terrifyingly consequential assignments without enough sleep.
The mountainous refuse pile of an armory room spun memories when he looked at it.
One chamber pot, two chamber pots, three chamber pots…
If he didn’t know what he was looking for this time around, he’d have gone mad.
“Are these actually assigned to anyone?” Oste asked as he crept his way inside. He nudged a halberd that had fallen over.
“Over here. Some men choose to store their lot in the gatehouse. They’re supposed to be split by the rings on the wall and the wood mannequins,” answered Jehan from the rightmost wall.
He gestured at the poorly divided spreads of weaponry and light armor.
When Oste shot him a desperate expression, Jehan inclined his head.
“They’re going to get a very low score on organization. ”
The physician grumbled and strode over to the mess.
Both he and Jehan picked their way through the arms and went down the line.
Nothing caught Oste’s eye, no unique baselards or leftover signs of a struggle on the armor or blades.
Nothing slowed him like the firearms did, all identical and together along the opposite wall.
They all but laughed at him from their row, the only neat perfection that the room bore.
A little fire, a little time, and a little downward tilt, and they’d have been pointed at him all over again in a practiced formation.
Oste forced himself to walk over. They were all the same.
One of that make and model killed Marie and nearly got him, too.
He supposed he was a little impressed. One gun, and there were so many ways it might ruin someone.
Wicked small shot. A singular lead ball.
It didn’t matter. Regardless of what they were loaded with or pointed at, they’d paint their own canvas of violence, crimson and devastating.
Eflamm always went to so much trouble finding the perfect reds for his pictures, but creating its richest shade was so easy.
All anyone had to do was point and shoot.
“Do you suppose…” Oste began. He had to stop and swallow. Needed to steady his breath, lest he find himself unable to finish off the jest he prayed might soften the sight. “Do you suppose more of the men here call them arquebuses or muskets?”
“I didn’t take you for a man eager to start another war.” Jehan walked up behind him. Oste envied his friend’s calm, clear in how easily he glided over to the wall of horrors.
He looked over. “Is there truly no difference anymore?”
“I… don’t actually believe so.” Jehan scratched the back of his head. “Semantics. Whichever rolls off the tongue?”
“I find ‘musket’ more preferable.”
“So do I, I think. There’s no need for you to look them over, though, if you don’t—”
Oste silenced the lieutenant with a shake of his head.
He reached out, mindless and haunted, to graze his fingers over the surface of the nearest firearm.
When the cool metal and polished wood pressed up against his fingertips, a shiver passed through him and he quite nearly drew away.
It was like his first time touching the dead, when al-Anezi guided him enough for him to have enclosed his hand over a once-beating heart.
The absence of life in both made him yearn to feel the warmth of the alternative.
But this weapon couldn’t harm him now. It was as dead on the wall as that departed criminal opened in the morgue.
It couldn’t touch him, not like he could, and did.
He felt it with a mocking reverence; every pass he made was like a swell of power.
Each passing second echoed the sentiment that the wretched musket was nothing.
Just parts pasted together, components of wood and metal that could have been molded and attached differently to formulate that of a storage chest, or traveling easel.
Silently it hovered, one of his greatest fears, and it was but a pathetic presentation of underwhelming artistry.
It slumbered so harmlessly. He could’ve kicked it or tossed it into the river, and there was nothing the gun could’ve done.
“You’re nothing,” Oste whispered to the weapon.
At his side, Jehan patted a closed fist over his heart, then let it morph into a rude gesture. Oste accompanied it with a curt nod of his own. A devil’s salute to an infernal weapon.
That Oste considered asking about relearning how to fire one told him that perhaps they did not hold as much power over him as they used to. They did not own him. He did not die.
“A shame we’re not ten anymore,” Jehan sighed. “I’d say we ought to take one out back and piss on it.”
Oste blanched. “That’s not at all clean.”
Jehan opened his mouth to make some queer retort that his friend anticipated, but he allowed it to go unsaid when boots on stone echoed from behind them in the hall.
The heavy footfalls bounced off the walls, and both young men turned in time for the veteran gatekeeper, a mortepaye, to stride in and offer them a stiffened bow.
Oste had seen the old man many times over when he departed to visit his family home, and had heard enough of his past accolades and honorable reputation in the armies to know that what the city was paying him wasn’t enough.
Just perhaps needs a little work on his armory organization, Oste thought to himself, but he supposed there were worse traits a man could have.
“Lieutenant,” he saluted.
“Sergent.” Jehan gave a small flourish of his cape. “Any news?”
“None.” The officer raked a gloved hand through his grey hair. “It’s been quiet tonight. I wondered if I might assist. I am told you are doing kit inspections.”
“Indeed. Docteur Lézin here has been studying field injuries himself, so I thought I might have him along to see all that he may deal with.”
Oste shot a glance at Jehan, but the grizzled gatekeeper nodded sagely and carried on. “That’s wise.”
Jehan shrugged. “Indeed. Now, it does pain me to say it, Sergent, but the armory leaves much to be desired.”
“I agree.” The old man twisted his face and shuffled on his feet. His features tensed, and he didn’t appear able to return to his earlier ease. “It is not to my standards. With the changes, I have lapsed as the men have.”
This made Oste narrow his eyes. “Changes?” he repeated. Jehan curled his mouth into a smile; he must have been fixing to ask the same thing.
“In the city forces, Docteur, and so the watch.” The officer frowned, and the depths from the expression gouged deep lines into the sides of his mouth that betrayed more of his age.
“The count and his brother are taking counts, or so I hear, and are looking to bolster the numbers assisting the gendarme. Some men have decided to return to the armies, and the damned—well, we’re to hand over a number of arms from our own city armories. ”
Jehan barked out a laugh. “So that’s what had the viguerie so afoul this—” The lieutenant cut himself off by clearing his throat and smoothing out his doublet.
“Well, I suppose it’s not France if we’re not all killing each other.
That explains some. How many Cordeliers men are you losing? Do you know?”
“Three thus far. And three wouldn’t be so bad, but Capitaine Tirel is returning to Flassans’ ranks; hard to stay away when you’re a favorite. It’s poor timing to have a vacancy. I’m not rightly sure who I’ll recommend. Monsieur Camsas, perhaps, though he’s not made up his own mind yet.”
Both Oste and Jehan’s brows slowly rose up, and it was the physician who found his voice first. “Those men will be off soon, then?”
“Presumably, yes. I don’t have the orders. I think there’s some trouble in the northwest.”
“Very good, Sergent,” said Jehan with a humble dip of his head. “Do you know who is out on patrol now, then?”
“Right now, should be seven—if they haven’t strayed to the nicer taverns in the Bourg.” The officer named those men for them, and Oste was intrigued to find Camsas and Tirel among them. “Should be the same checkpoints as always.”
“Then I know where I can catch them,” affirmed Jehan. “Thank you. This was very helpful.”
The mortepaye angled his body as though to leave, but he steadily lowered his eyelids and looked over his shoulder at them both. Oste was reminded of his father’s judgement whenever he’d been naughty. “Field injuries?”
“I believe that’s what we are calling it tonight, Sergent.
” Jehan had answered him with an easy smile that somehow said everything and nothing all at once.
Oste clutched the strung together words that weren’t said but hung in the air.
Doubtless the old man had been questioned at length about the murders already, and by Jehan most of all.
Oste felt exposed, but not uncomfortable; he might know what they were up to with the investigation, but the veteran who safely looked over their coming and going every day without trouble was no threat.
He ought to want to catch the rat in their midst just as much.
The officer saluted again. “Be vigilant, men. Both your fathers would skewer me if I let you lot leave here as anything less.”
“Truthfully, mine would go for his gun and shoot you,” said Oste dryly. He angled his neck to regard Jehan.
The lieutenant nodded. “Mine would do the skewering.”